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Retirement decisions prompt hunt for two new editors

The search has begun for successors to the editors at two Northcliffe evening papers.

George Edwards is retiring from the South Wales Evening Post in Swansea after 40 years with the group, while Peter Moore is also retiring, after 20 years in the Grimsby Evening Telegraph hotseat.

Both plan to stand down later this year.

Peter, (59), became Telegraph editor in 1982 and is a director of Grimsby & Scunthorpe Newspapers.

Milestones during his time there include the October 1990 transformation to a tabloid format and the memorable Press Club Scoop of the Year where Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont told his Grimsby-based mum that he was about to resign – and she told the Telegraph.

Peter said: “It was a good job well done by our newsdesk and the young reporter.

“One of the best things about it was that on the day of the presentation the then England manager Graham Taylor had resigned and we had heard via his dad, who used to work at the Telegraph.

“We ran the story that day and we had great fun with all the national boys, thanking them for the award and then telling them Taylor had resigned and that it was in the Grimsby Telegraph. There was silence at first, then a scramble for their phones!”

Peter began his career at the Hull Daily Mail’s Beverley office before moving to Hull as a sub, working his way up to chief sub and assistant editor before winning the Grimsby and Scunthorpe editorship.

The Telegraph enjoys a healthy 44,000 circulation – and Peter says that maintaining it will be his successor’s biggest challenge.

George Edwards, (60), has been with the South Wales Evening Post for 20 years, the past seven years as editor.

He plans to leave the paper at the end of the year, and will leave it with a healthy circulation, in excess of 62,000.

The paper covers South Wales counties including Swansea, Neath, Port Talbot, Llanelli, Carmarthen, Ammanford and Pontardawe.

Both jobs are now being advertised, with more details in our vacancies section.

  • Recent appointments to Northcliffe editorships include former Press Association executive Terry Manners, now editor at the Western Daily Press, former Daily Express news editor Alan Qualtrough, who is editor of the Plymouth Evening Herald, and former Express assistant editor Roger Watkins, now with the Brentwood Gazette.

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